Festival Season

Hello again internet comrades.  My golden week vacation is mostly over already and I haven’t gotten lost, stranded on an island or humiliated on a cruel game show yet.  At one point however I appeared to be lost (i.e. walking down the side of a rural highway) and a man stopped his car to ask me if I needed a ride (in English).  I said I was just walking and he drove off.  Then 20 minutes later after I turned on to a different road he drove up behind me again.  He had driven to his job, picked up an English guide to the town and then tracked me down again.  It turns out he was formerly in charge of the regional ALT program and had been the liaison for up to 15 American teachers.  He now manages a hot spring resort and after we chatted for a good 20 minutes he gave me a free bath ticket.  He also steered me off the main road up onto a twisty one-lane forest road that I hiked on for two hours while only seeing 4 cars.  I put a couple pictures on Facebook. 

Other than that I’ve been to two festivals.  One involved children performing Kabuki plays on mobile stages that looked like shrines.  The kids were around 8 to 10 years old and had flawlessly memorized a full hour’s worth of dialogue in 400 year old Japanese.  I understood about 8 words.  I went with a coworker who is very into both theater and understanding hard Japanese, so we watched three different plays.  I got tired and sunburned but luckily they had refreshment booths selling food on a stick.  The other festival was a fire festival in the town of Godo which is about 5 miles away.  It started at midnight so we biked there.  I’m not really sure of the significance, but it basically involved groups of men in loin clothes charging up and down the main street with huge burning torches.  Mostly it was cool to see this sleepy country town completely lit up and packed with people at 12am.  I got a couple pictures, but it was so crowded they weren’t very good. 

So far this week has left me surprised at the amount of fairly famous events in the very near vicinity of Ogaki.  I had never been to either of the festivals.  In fact this whole week I haven’t even been more than one train stop from home.  The farthest I’ve been is actually about 7-8 miles that I went in search of a Nintendo Classic Mini.  It’s like a miniature version of the original NES that comes with 30 all-time favorite games on it.  I didn’t find it, but I did pick up a cheaper used version that has 88 games including classics such as “fruit tree” and “whale”.  Hours of fun await.  The other pictures I posted where from an excursion to a shrine called Nangu Taisha.  It’s huge, over 1000 years old, located 6 miles from my house, and I had never heard of it before I went.  The surprises just keep coming. 

Last night five of the Americans celebrated Cinco de Mayo be making tacos and mixing margaritas from sprite and green syrup.  A couple Japanese people came and fortunately didn’t ask too many questions about Mexican history.  I’m trying to get a few people together to go the beach tomorrow.  It’s the last day of break and the weather says 73 and sunny!  Hope everyone back home is getting some spring weather by now!  Later!